Another day, another scare tactic for your dollar?

“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name, you know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

Last time I looked George Washington was the only president on the dollar bills, but with Obama, that’s likely to change. Or so he hopes.

It’s astonishing how readily socialism can be repackaged as populism just by using some loftily vacuous rhetoric. Every time there’s an economic hiccup, we hear some new narrative explaining how we need higher taxes and more government intervention. Make no mistake: fear is exactly what Barack Obama is selling here. If you aren’t afraid, you might listen to economists, who will drone on about boring, unhopeful, nonaudacious concepts like private market efficiency, cumulative productivity gains, and long-term growth through the creative destruction of inefficient competitors.

Comments

Fausta, please calm down. Lotsa us less edumacated people say “dollar bills” when they really mean to say “currency.” Cut the guy a little slack on this particular one. Hammer him on reverse racism — harder!